Family Robot

GROOVE X is teasing its LOVOT companion robots that are scheduled to be released in 2019. GROOVE X says its goal is to create companion robots that provide emotional support through AI-driven interactions.

For the second year in a row, Ecovacs Robotics sold the largest number of products in the small appliances category on Singles’ Day. This reinforces the transition in personal robot ownership from a ‘novelty’ to a ‘necessity’, as consumers continue to embrace home robots so that they can gain back valuable free time by having routine household chores such as floor and window cleaning, air purification and even entertainment and home security conducted automatically.

This year on Singles’ Day, which was Nov. 11, the convenience of shopping online and an unprecedented adoption of in-home robotics by consumers drove more than $47 million in 24 hours for Ecovacs Robotics, which was double that of last year’s sales. Initial sales had actually surpassed $3 million in the first five minutes, $16 million within the first hour, and $31 million in less than nine hours before the company reached its record sales of $47 million in a single day.

Based in China, “Singles’ Day” has rapidly grown into the largest online shopping day in the world; overshadowing even “Black Friday” and “Cyber Monday” in the United States. E-commerce giant Alibaba broke its own record for sales on China’s Singles Day with sales worth 91.2bn yuan ($14.3bn; £9.4bn), a 60% increase from 2014. In comparison, sales on Cyber Monday, which is the biggest online shopping day in the US, hit $1.35bn, according to data analytics firm ComScore.

The phenomenon was originally created by some college students in China as a special holiday to celebrate people who were not in a relationship – people who were essentially single. Nov. 11 was chosen for the annual holiday because no other date on the calendar has as many 1s or “singles.”

Ecovacs WINBOT W730 window cleaning robot

During the 24-hour Singles’ Day event, Ecovacs Robotics sold tens of thousands of its personal home robots, which included individual and multi-purpose robots that help with a wide range of cleaning, entertainment and security. Ecovacs Robotics DEEBOT line cleans, mops and polishes floors, WINBOT line cleans windows, ATMOBOT provides mobile air purification and FAMIBOT provides Internet-connected entertainment and home security.

According to a new report from Tractica, annual shipments of consumer robots will increase from 6.6 million units in 2015 to 31.2 million units worldwide by 2020, with a cumulative total of 96.7 million consumer robots shipped during that period. The market intelligence firm anticipates that household robots will remain the largest segment of the market over the next several years, but the fastest growth will occur in robotic personal assistants, a category that is nascent today.

“The next phase of the consumer robotics revolution is well and truly underway,” says research director Aditya Kaul. “The next 5 years will set the stage for how these robots could fundamentally transform our homes and daily lives.”